Cum-duty retail price under exemption notification includes special excise duty, allowing deduction before assessable value is computed.

For Notification No. 245/83, a cum-duty retail price had to be reduced by the duty component before computing the exempted value, and the expression "excise duty" was read broadly to include special excise duty as well as basic excise duty. Because the notification did not limit the term to duty under the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944, special excise duty was deductible in arriving at assessable value. The Revenue's narrower construction was rejected, and the assessee was treated as entitled to deduct special excise duty under the notification.

---

---

Issues: Whether, for purposes of Notification No. 245/83, special excise duty payable on medicaments manufactured by the assessee was deductible while determining the assessable value.

Analysis: The notification was construed on the basis that the fixed retail price was to be treated as a cum-duty price. In working out the exemption, the duty component had to be deducted from that price before arriving at the net value, and the duty was then computed on the reduced value. On that approach, the deduction necessarily included both basic excise duty and special excise duty. The expression used in the notification was "excise duty" generally and was not confined to duty under the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944.

Conclusion: Special excise duty was deductible in computing the assessable value under the notification, and the contention of the Revenue was rejected.

Final Conclusion: The assessee was held entitled to deduct special excise duty while applying the exemption notification, and the assessment order was set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an exemption notification contemplates deduction of duty from a cum-duty retail price, the term "excise duty" includes all forms of excise duty unless the notification expressly restricts it to a particular kind of duty.

---